Oil, Responsibility, Pollution, and Volunteerism.

It has been several months since the 900-foot container ship Costco Busan slammed into a pier of the Oakland Bay Bridge, ripping a gaping hole in its hull and spilling 58,000 gallons of bunker oil into the San Francisco Bay.

Sunday, on the way back from the shopping mall, I made a short stop at my favorite beach to see if the months-long oil cleanup was successful.

Sign of the Times

Once upon a time, the Bay was covered with ships sailing under the American flag, packed with domestically manufactured goods bound for emerging markets in Europe and Asia. And, hard as it is to believe, America was one of the largest oil exporters in the world. No longer.

Today, America has virtually no merchant shipping fleet of its own. Our manufacturing prowess is limited to creating clever financial "instruments" that, up until a few months ago, made billions of dollars for wealthy Wall Street bankers. And oil? We now import most our needs from some of the most politically unstable nations on the planet. Foreign ships, mostly container carriers and fuel tankers, sail through the Golden Gate, filled with the two critically important necessities of modern American life: oil to feed our ravenous appetite for fossil fuels and cheap consumer goods to stock the shelves of Wal-Mart and Target.

Strong, seasonal winds and current pushed the spilled fuel north and south onto nearby beaches, fouling miles of coastline. The immediate response by our Coast Guard (now under the leadership of the Department of Homeland Security) was sluggish. There was confusion about how the accident happened, and early estimates on the size of the spill were grossly underestimated.

The first 72 hours following an oil spill are critical. The oil remains floating on the surface, in large slicks. As time passes, the oil spreads further, breaking apart into smaller increments, eventually sinking.

As word of the accident circulated, thousands of locals streamed to various parks along the shoreline, ready to lend a hand with the cleanup. Dozens of commercial fisherman, as well as private boat owners, reached out to the Coast Guard, offering the use of their boats to help pull oil collecting booms across Bay waters.

But the Coast Guard was unwilling to harness the energies of well-meaning citizens. Lacking any coherent plan on how to put this outpouring of volunteers to work, the Coast Guard instead told people to go home, that the spill wasn't their responsibility. When folks protested, the Coast Guard warned people away from the waterfront, citing liability concerns and possible health risks. The specific nature of the liability issues or health risks were never made clear.

Tempers flared. Some volunteers ignored the warnings, and armed with gloves and Hefty trash bags, struck out for their favorite shoreline area to began their own private cleanup campaign. Rangers issued citations. People were threatened with arrest.

It seems the long-time American tradition to pitch-in and help during a time of crisis is no longer encouraged. Like so many of the other responsibilities assigned to The Department of Homeland Security, environmental cleanup has been privatized. The O'Brien's Group, a for-profit emergency response management company, was hired by the owner of the errant South Korean container ship to coordinate the clean up. Little was known about the company's track record; environmental clean up is a largely unregulated business. Slick press releases from The O'Brien's Group assured the public that their workers were experienced, highly trained professionals.

The cleanup crews worked for over a month; bored-looking men and women dressed in full-body plastic haz-mat suits, picking up tiny pieces of congealed bunker fuel from the ground, or cleaning oil stains from rocks, sometimes using toothbrushes. The work was labor intensive. The crews were out along the waterfront seven days a week, including Thanksgiving. When they spoke, it was in Spanish. Except for the supervisors. They were beefy white guys who spent the better part of their workday standing around drinking coffee and talking sports.

The timing of the oil spill couldn't have been worse. We were at the height of the seasonal duck migration. During November and December, hundreds of thousands of birds pass through Bay Area. Officials indicated over 2,000 ducks died as a result of the spill. Environmental groups estimated the number to be far higher. But the ducks are not the only animals at risk. Wildlife biologists continue to keep a close eye on our local sea lions. Over the last decade, our local sea lion population has been shrinking. There are multiple theories for the population loss, none conclusively proven. Water pollution, stress, and a mysterious virus are sometimes mentioned as possible causes. The accident introduced thousands of gallons of bunker fuel smack-dab in the center of the sea lions habitat. The impact the oil will have on this already stressed population has yet to be revealed.

It was beautiful weather for visiting my favorite beach. The sun was warm and comforting, the sky cloudless. The faint aroma of oil, noticeable for weeks after the oil spill, was finally gone. From my viewing point, the bay appeared calm and flat. Looking out towards the Golden Gate Bridge, I watched a tanker, sitting low and fat in the water, heading towards the Richmond fuel refinery. Even though the price of gas has never been higher, the refinery runs day and night, unable keep up with demand.

The beach was crowded with people walking their dogs, almost all of whom had, like me, arrived at the beach in their personal automobiles. A few feet offshore, I noticed a bundle of oil-soaked feathers floating on the surface of the water. A duck's body was bobbing amidst a small island of trash: plastic bags, bottles, discarded cigarette lighters, broken toys; the usual flotsam that washes into the bay after a winter storm.

The passing people ignored the duck and the trash. Cleaning up the Bay was not their responsibility. Instead, it is easier to blame the shipping company, or The O'Brien's Group, or the Department of Homeland Security, or the Coast Guard. Blame the government, big business or foreign imports. Blame Microsoft or the French. Point the finger at someone other than all of us well-intentioned American consumers whose rapacious hunger for big cars and cheap goods continues to wreak havoc on the delicate fabric of our wonderful country.

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